Thoughts from Frøydis: Buzzing for Strength
by Frøydis Ree Wekre
During the pandemic shutdown, I finished an old plan—with invaluable help from Marilyn Bone Kloss: putting most of my articles and notes together into one booklet. I have always liked to express myself in writing, and I do like to share. Collected Writings has some thoughts on this and that, topics such as performing, teaching, artistic matters, and more. Here is one of the shorter pieces. I hope it may be of interest or help for somebody out there!
Buzzing – an additional way of strengthening the lips
General thoughts
All brass players can benefit from buzzing on the lips for training purposes. This can happen with or without the mouthpiece. I will describe both ways, based on my experiences as a player and as a teacher. Some of the objections that are being raised by colleagues in the field will also be included.
When I started to play the horn, buzzing was never mentioned by any of my teachers. They had never heard about it or done it themselves. Since they had become good players without any buzzing involved, they were sceptical when hearing about it in their later years.
And, in a way, I can see their point. A couple of years ago, a prominent European trumpet teacher expressed himself this way, on the subject of buzzing in relation to actual accomplishments on the instrument: I really think I have seen it all. Some students can play well in the high range but not buzz high. Some can buzz high, but not play high. And some cannot buzz at all, but they can play very well, while others buzz rather fantastically, but they sound terrible. And of course many can buzz well and also play well. It is quite confusing.
Nowadays a good teacher is expected to get a lot out of all pupils and students, not only the ones who are especially talented, the “naturals”. I, for one, was not so physically strong in and around the lips as a young horn player. When I was finally introduced to the idea of practicing strength away from the instrument by buzzing, it helped me enormously. The variations in shape that I had experienced in my earlier days were (almost) gone, as long as I took care and gave myself some daily minutes buzzing on the lips and on the mouthpiece.
Traditionally, trumpet players seem to be the most interested in buzzing. The most famous brass pedagogue to introduce buzzing in his teachings and writings was, after all, trumpet player James Stamp. Horn players are somewhat interested, and among the low brass players, quite a few teachers seem to use it and recommend it now. For example, the bass trombone player of the Berlin Philharmonic, Stefan Schultz, recommends a little buzzing on the lips alone for the beginning of the warm up, and then he himself is aiming for approximately 45 minutes total playing on the mouthpiece in the course of a normal day.
Fearless Performance — Ritual
by Jeff Nelsen and Katy Webb
Has anybody told you today that you are AMAZING? And we mean absolutely amazing. We don’t care if things are messy, challenging, frustrating, or not working as planned…well, we do care, but what we REALLY care about is that you remind yourself that, no matter the messiness, you woke up today and said, “I’m going back at it!”
Even when things don’t go as planned, you’re still going. You believe in yourself, your music, and your students enough to say, “Here I am! Let’s do this! Let’s keep moving forward!” Not everyone will do that. So, here’s your little reminder that, yes, you are amazing.
We’d love to help you show up to your daily practice a little readier amidst the messiness, so here’s a quick-start guide to create a renewing, fail-proof practice ritual. Greg McKeon says, “A ritual is a habit with a soul.” This 10-to-25-minute ritual is designed to give you space to renew your musical soul so that you can walk into the new year feeling accomplished, fulfilled, and eager for future opportunities.
Pull out your calendar…yes, right now!
Mark which days you want to practice and which days you want to take off.
Make it a date!
Find a 10-to-25-minute block of time you can commit to on most practice days. Then, complete one of these sentences: “I will start my practice ritual at [TIME] in [LOCATION]” or “After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will start my practice ritual.”
Fill your ritual with things you love.
This is YOUR time, so use it to explore your sound in a way that is renewing for you. We’ve used our time to play quality tones along with a favorite show, to meditate on simple, beautiful melodies, and to improvise along with favorite tracks on our play lists. (And don’t forget a nice candle, an inspiring poster, and a yummy drink for after, too!)
Social proof it.
Build your accountability pod. Get a text chain going so you can check in, swap your creative practice ideas, or pick a challenge to do together. We’re on a "prevail the scale" kick! We’ve been loving Nathan Cole’s Scales: The Road to Repertoire and have been exploring books of scales written for different instruments. If you don’t have an accountability pod, join ours! DM or tag us on Instagram with your scale wins and discoveries.
Effective practice is anything that helps you gain knowledge about yourself, your instrument, or your music. Can you imagine how it would feel to have spent most days this month exploring music from a place of enjoyment? You CAN make little adjustments to approach this holiday season from a sustainable place of well-being as you keep your skills in top-notch shape!
If you’d like even more ideas, we’re hosting a free, live training session for players of all levels next week called How to (Consistently) Prepare for Your Performance: 5 refreshingly motivating techniques to drop the distress and perform your best amid final exams, final rounds, and final countdowns to the holidays. Register here!
Cheering you on!
IHS 55 — Just in time for the holidays!
Dear fellow horn players,
We are so excited to announce that registration for IHS55 is now open! So far, we have announced 7 featured artists: the American Horn Quartet, Katarina Javurkovà, Victor Prado, Ursula Paludan Monberg, Jeff Scott, Yun Zeng, and Andrew Bain…what a line up! And we still have 12 more featured artists to announce. We feel incredibly lucky to have so many wonderful horn players coming to Montréal next summer.
To find out more about IHS 55, the featured artists, contributing artists proposals, and to register, visit the website at www.ihs55.org.
- Early bird offers will be available until April 1, 2023.
- Contributing artists proposals will be accepted until February 1, 2023.
To celebrate the holiday season, four of our team members—Louis-Philippe, Maude, Marjolaine, and Xavier—have recorded a short holiday quartet. It was arranged by another team member, Eric, and it contains a few hidden horn excerpts. Can you identify them all?
We wish you all a wonderful holiday season!
—Your IHS 55 Team
Composer Spotlight — Shanyse Strickland
by Caiti Beth McKinney
Hello everyone!
This December, I want to shine the spotlight on the incredibly talented and versatile composer and performer, Shanyse Strickland. While horn is her primary instrument, she also plays and records music on flute as well as on other wind and brass instruments. Strickland has a unique musical voice, incorporating elements of rhythm-and-blues, jazz, and other genres into her works. (Definitely check out her recording called Horn Vibes on which she performs an amazing horn-centric RnB track!)
Originally from Akron, Ohio, Shanyse has degrees in Horn Performance from Youngstown State University and Duquesne University, as well as an Artist Diploma in Jazz French Horn from the University of North Texas. Now based in New Jersey, she frequently performs in a wide array of genres, including rock-and-roll and neo-soul.
To date, Strickland has published four original compositions for horn in a variety of chamber configurations. Moods, written for horn quartet, seeks to represent what Strickland describes as “everyday feelings,” which, to my ear, manages to capture moments of joy, melancholy, and peace throughout the work. In contrast is her work A B.O.P. – Beats of Power! for trumpet, horn, and trombone/bass trombone. This piece pulls from Black-influenced genres such as jazz and disco to create music with “multiple vibes.” Another of Strickland’s powerful compositions is I Would…and I WILL for brass quintet, which she describes as “a portrait of the heart of black women during slavery,” based on a quote by heroine Elizabeth Freeman, an enslaved black woman who won the first successful freedom lawsuit in the United States. Not to be missed is Strickland’s piece For Your Love, “an RnB, hip-hop, and contemporary mash-up that symbolizes the passionate journey that two lovers go through while sharing life with each other.” Combining flute, horn, spoken word, and electronics, this piece embodies the new genre of what Strickland calls “Classical-Pop.”
For more information or to purchase her works, please visit Strickland’s website: https://www.shanysestrickland.com.
Horn on Record
by Ian Zook
Volume 3—Meir Rimon
Through popular vote, our latest edition of Horn on Record will journey to Israel to listen as hornist Meir Rimon and pianist Bruno Canino perform works by Arcangelo Corelli, Robert Schumann, Richard Strauss, and Yehezkel Braun.
Released in 1981, this recording was made in the studio at the Jerusalem Music Centre (JMC) under its iconic Yemin Moshe Windmill. JMC was founded in 1973 by violinist Isaac Stern and serves as an institute for the advancement of young musicians across the county and as a concert venue for both national and international artists. Additionally, its recording studios are renowned for both their state-of-the-art equipment and exceptionally designed acoustical spaces.
Hornist Meir Rimon (1946 – 1991) was born in Vilna (Vilnius), the capital of Lithuania, which historically served as a spiritual and cultural center for the Jewish people in Eastern Europe. Moving with his family to Israel at age 10, Rimon studied horn with Horst Solomon who had been principal horn of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra since its inception in 1936 under Arturo Toscanini. (Prior to 1948, the IPO was known as the Palestine Symphony Orchestra.)
Rimon joined the Israeli Army Symphony Band at age 18 and, following his discharge, performed with the Jerusalem Radio Orchestra. Rimon traveled to Europe to study with Herman Baumann and Alan Civil, and to the United States to study briefly with Dale Clevenger and Myron Bloom. He then auditioned for Zubin Mehta and was appointed principal horn of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra where he performed from 1971 until his untimely passing in 1991.
In addition to teaching at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Tel-Aviv University, Rimon taught at Indiana University for 18 months between 1982-1984. He was elected to three terms on the Advisory Board of the International Horn Society and then served three consecutive terms as Vice President. Rimon was considered an effusive “good will ambassador” for the IHS, as his touring with the Israel Philharmonic took him across the world where he passionately shared the virtues and benefits of membership.
Rimon’s playing is marked by a velvety and sonorous tone across the range of the horn, a dedication to full-length articulations, and an unflagging sustain of tone throughout the dynamic spectrum. His preferred instrument was a triple horn made by Paxman of London, and one can marvel at the absolute consistency of his sound knowing that he likely used both the Bb and high F horns liberally.
This record features two works which have been recorded infrequently, an arrangement of the Sonata in F by Arcangelo Corelli, and the Sonata (1969) by Israeli composer Yehezkel Braun. One can read about Braun’s Sonata on the album jacket which notes that the overall melodicism of this through-composed work is influenced by “ancient Hebrew cantilation,” and the horn acts often in character as a Jewish shofar. Here a few examples from the album:
The Prelude from Corelli’s Sonata shows Rimon’s evenness of sound and broad connectivity of his phrasing:
Later, in the concluding Gigue, the fleet passagework in the piano dazzles alongside Rimon’s easy athleticism:
The Sonata by Yehezkel Braun begins with a plaintive melody, played with an intense, searching sostenuto:
Rimon plays the following section in recitative style, as if it were an invocation:
Later, a playful lilting theme is introduced. Rimon drifts through the syncopations and scalar runs with fluidity:
Braun’s Sonata ends with music imbued with the gravity of the opening melody. Rimon and pianist Canino have given us a beautiful interpretation of this wonderful and neglected work:
Special thanks to Jeff Lang of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and former colleague of Meir Rimon in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, for sharing personal anecdotes. And thank you as always for reading Horn on Record!
Horn on Record
by Ian Zook
Volume 2—Georges Barboteu
For this installment of Horn on Record, we are exploring a recording that features repertoire for a unique and versatile chamber combination—horn and harp.
Our second album review, Cor et Harpe, features performers Georges Barboteu on horn and Lily Laskine on harp, both exemplars of the French tradition and aesthetic. While the album was released on the French label Erato, an actual recording date is not listed or cataloged. The educated assumption is that the recording was made in the early 1970’s. 
This recording includes selections by the well-known hornists and composers Louis-François Dauprat and Frédéric Duvernoy, and two pieces by a less well-known composer, Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. Significantly, this is the first recording of these pieces, and it is also the first recording of any repertoire for horn and harp.
Bochsa was a contemporary of Dauprat and lived in Paris from 1807-1817. He would have undoubtedly known Dauprat through their years together at the Conservatoire de Paris. Bochsa was a concert harpist and prolific composer, with a catalog of over four hundred opus numbers. He also helped to establish the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1821.
The hornist on this recording, Georges Barboteu (1926-2006), was the son of Joseph Barboteu, a professional hornist and professor at the Conservatoire d’Algiers. At nine years old, Georges began studies with his father and later played alongside him in both the Grand Casino in Biarritz, France, and the Radio Orchestra of Algiers. Georges then entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1950, winning the Premiere Prix and the Geneva International Competition in quick succession.
Georges Barboteu held many prestigious appointments, including the solo horn chairs of the Opera Comique and the Orchestre de Paris. He was horn professor at the Conservatoire de Paris for twenty years and a founding member of the Quintette Ars Nova.
We are indebted to Barboteu not just for his consummate artistry in performing and teaching, but also for his contributions to the hornist’s repertoire. He wrote several etude books and composed over forty pieces for both solo horn and horn in combination with other instruments. His recording catalog is extensive and includes a range of concerti and chamber repertoire.
Frequently featured at symposia of the International Horn Society, Barboteu was a member of the Advisory Council from 1976-1979 and recognized as an Honorary Member in 1998.
As a chamber music pairing, horn and harp were a very popular combination for salon music in the early 19th century. The clear and rhythmic articulation of the harp strings, along with the rich and diffuse resonance of its sound, knits seamlessly with the horn. Of course, in the era of these compositions, it was the veiled and varied tones of the natural horn which would have balanced both melodically and texturally with the harp.
While Georges Barboteu is playing valve horn on this album, we are still treated to a light and fluid phrasing that is reminiscent of the vocal natural-horn style. As a French player in the mid-20th Century, we notice a considerable amount of vibrato by modern standards. Yet his sound his quite rich and full with broad articulations and noticeable delicacy in the softer dynamic range.
In the Allegro assai from Duvernoy’s Duexiéme Nocturne, we hear the harp’s present and effective articulations and how these textures provide clarity for the softer articulations of the horn:
In Duaprat’s marvelous Air Écossais Varíe, Op. 22, Barboteu plays with arching lyricism across the phrases and ends with delicate rubato:
Barboteu’s bel canto style and subtle portamento are beautifully captured in the Andante varié from Dauprat’s Sonate pour Harpe avec accompagnement de cor oblige, Op. 3:
Last, the lilting melody composed by N.C. Bochsa in his Fantasie, Op. 72 allows Barboteu to showcase his vocal vibrato and dynamic control across phrases:
Thank you for reading of Horn on Record!
If you would like this vinyl album for yourself, they are available here.
IHS 55 - Let the Unveiling Begin
Dear fellow horn players,
We have big plans for this summer! 19 featured artists from around the world will join us in Montreal next July. We have just started unveiling who these artists will be, and we’d love to keep you up to date!
First, we have not one but four artists joining the line-up: Kerry Turner, Kristina Mascher-Turner, Geoffrey Winter, and Denise Tryon will all be in Montreal next summer. Entering its fourth decade and following a hiatus of four years, the American Horn Quartet continues to be unique in the field of brass chamber music. Their exuberant performances have brought audiences all over the world to their feet. In 1982, four American horn players who were living and working in Europe met for the first time to explore the potential of the horn quartet, a chamber ensemble with a surprisingly long tradition. They quickly began to supplement the existing repertoire with their own compositions and arrangements. The group has undergone a few personnel changes since the early days but has always maintained the highest standards of artistry and technical mastery.
Next up, we have Katerina Javurkovà from the Czech Republic. Katerina has won several interpretation competitions but values most her first prize from the Prague Spring International Competition 2013 and the 2nd prize from the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, Germany. She now plays with the Czech Philharmonic.
Finally, all the way from Brazil we have Victor Prado. With a Master of Music degree from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Victor Prado has been working in the Brazilian popular music scene for over ten years. Playing horn outside the usual classical music scene, he started to develop his own musical language, blending jazz, Brazilian music, and improvisation. This places him among the horn pioneers in jazz in Brazil.
…and make sure you check out our website for regular updates: www.ihs55.org
The IHS 55 Organizing Committee
Pedagogy - Learning to Lip Trill
by Daniel Grabois
A good lip trill makes a thrilling sound on the horn. You trill quickly between two notes, usually a whole step apart, using the same fingering for each note. Many people struggle with learning how to do a lip trill, so I will propose three methods of practice below.
But first, a quick note about fingerings. It goes without saying that any fingering that produces an excellent sounding trill that is in tune is a good fingering. I have found fingerings that work for me, and I’ll offer them to you here.
Typically, the lowest lip trill we will play is from F♯ at the bottom of the treble clef (note that all the trills I discuss will be whole-step trills, since half-step trills can almost always be done as fingered trills; so when I say “F♯ trill,” I mean a trill from F♯ to G♯). I finger the first two trills in my sequence, the F♯ trill and the G trill, with the fingering for the higher note, played on the F horn:
F♯ trill, finger F23
G trill, finger F12
Many people finger the G trill F13, but I find that fingering out of tune for both notes of the trill, G and A. F12 gives me better intonation.
For the next set of trills, from the G♯ trill up to the C trill, I finger the lower note on the F horn:
G♯ trill, finger F23
A trill, finger F12
B♭ trill, finger F1
B trill, finger F2
C trill, finger F0
From C♯ on up, finger the lower note on the B♭ horn. You know those fingerings, so I don’t need to list them.
Now that you know which fingerings to use, how do you actually make the trill “kick in?” Below are the 3 methods to practice; but before examining those, here is one quick explanation: by making the trill “kick in,” I mean having the alternation between the two pitches of the trill gain lightning speed, seemingly by magic, so that it actually sounds like a trill and not a labored motion from note to note. Now, try each of these approaches:
